This post originally appeared on Orphan Road.
How should new service hours be allocated and how should that apply to BRT and LRT investment? King county’s 40-40-20 is killing Seattle, and ST is a rail agency no question about that. So what about better bus service in Seattle?
I know this is somewhat of a circular argument but I think one reason everyone wants rail, myself included (besides all of the other ones) is because our bus system is so bad here we have no concept of what a good bus system is like. Metro has just recently gotten onboard with feux to semi BRT (depending on how you look at it) and ST doesn’t even pretend to have BRT. I want ST to build LINK but I think that we need to build it where demand is, not where politics or sub-area equity take it.
I don’t want this to become LRT vs BRT I just think we need to think outside the box and really decided what our end goal is. LINK will help a lot but what if we want to get to 10% or even 15% market share? How could this even be done? With gas prices it doesn’t seam to outrageous to ask these questions. I know one thing and that is unless the federal government helps out there is no way we can afford that much LINK.
So this is what I think needs to happen. Metro need to dramatically improve service frequency and hours according to demand, not subarea. Also it should take it’s 10 highest ridership routes (besides the current rapidride routes) and give them all BRT treatment. I also think they need to come every 10 minutes during the day not every 10 or 15 like rapidride. As I have said before the system should be design to get people to their destination but it needs to encourage transfers, just like rail. And for god sake please fix E/W access in this city. Metro has underinvested in quality bus transit, rather just focusing on trying to get as much service out the door. This is understandable but they need to get beyond that. Things are changing and I really think that we need visionary and bold leadership form ST and especially metro.
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